By JEFFREY ANDERSON
Wednesday, March 22, 2006 - 11:00 am
Excerpt from article on Owens Lake
A consequence of standing water or irrigated vegetation is the development of a mosquito-breeding habitat. A 1995 final report to Great Basin by Bruce Eldridge and Kenneth Lorenzen from the Department of Entomology at UC Davis is titled “Predicting Mosquito Breeding in a Restored Owens Lake.” Eldridge and Lorenzen studied Owens Lake from 1993 to 1995, according to their report, when the DWP cut off funding — but not before they warned that shallow flooding would produce larvae of Culex tarsalis, the mosquito now known to carry West Nile virus. Last September the DWP filed a declaration of no environmental impact — prepared by CH2M Hill — with the Inyo County clerk. In response to comments submitted by Patterson, the DWP offered to notify property owners of their “eligibility to receive window and door screens or other insect control devices of comparable value.”
In a January 17, 2006, letter to Don Odell, Department of Health Services mosquito-control specialist Tim Howard wrote: “A case can be made that any shallow lakebed with an abundance of emergent vegetation is a very likely place to produce mosquitoes, including Culex tarsalis, and increase human risk of West Nile virus. The flooding will increase not only the potential risk of West Nile virus. Human annoyance and risk of other mosquito vectored diseases will also increase.”
Last October, the Owens Valley Mosquito Abatement Program, an Inyo County agency that is reimbursed for its studies by the DWP under the agreement with Great Basin, found evidence of Culex tarsalis on the lake for the first time. The DWP is spending $300,000 over five years for mosquito abatement, but Odell believes almost all of it goes to research and preparing the annual report.
Vector-control specialist Jerry Oser says, “There’s several springs near the shoreline that produce lots of mosquitoes. What I’m seeing, wherever salt grass is growing on the lake, it shows mosquitoes a reason to go out there. There’s a lot of water out there. There’s also a lot of equipment — huge water mains with little offshoots. Who knows what it’ll look like when they’re done. It’s mind-boggling.”
